


I touch you once, I touch you twice

by sterlingsparrow



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Barricades, Faverolles Era, M/M, Madeleine Era, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Suicide Attempt, Toulon Era, basically all the eras
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-30 08:29:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18311945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sterlingsparrow/pseuds/sterlingsparrow
Summary: When his mark starts to appear, Jean Valjean is older than most.Javert is unusually young when his fingers begin to turn black.





	I touch you once, I touch you twice

**Author's Note:**

> If you get what the title refers to, congrats, I guess? We must listen to the same terrible 80s music.

When his mark starts to appear, Jean Valjean is older than most.

The typical age for a mark to show is eighteen. Sometimes one is younger, but rarely so; it is far more common for a mark, having missed its usual appearance, to show itself in one’s early twenties. And as Jean ages, his skin remains clear. No telltale black mark reveals itself.

Perhaps he is one of the few without a mark or soulmate, something rare but not unheard of. The years continue to pass. He has nearly resigned himself to this fate when, at age twenty-five, a black begins to form on his neck in the shape of four long fingers.

It fascinates his nieces and nephews, troubles his sister. What possible circumstances could Jean meet his soulmate under that the woman would need to touch his neck in such a way?

Jean Valjean is unaffected, and he does not change his daily routine. By now, he has already stepped into a father-like role for his sister’s children. He has no need of a soulmate, and his days are so long he barely has time to think on the subject.

He takes care to cover his neck, however. Valjean pushes his collar up constantly, occasionally wishing for a cravat like the bourgeoisie sport, and then reprimands himself. A cravat would only be for his ow selfish wants. It is unnecessary.

Two years after the mark of Valjean’s soulmate appears on his skin, he is arrested for attempted robbery. He is inevitably convicted. He is sent to Toulon, where Jean Valjean is stripped away and replaced with Prisoner 24601. In this place, soulmates do not exist.

 

Javert is unusually young when his fingers begin to turn black.

He runs to his mother when he notices. He is still a boy, not quite fifteen, and he fears sickness. The idea of a soulmate barely exists in his mind.

“That’s the mark of your soulmate,” his mother tells him with a smile. “You will touch her for the first time with that skin.”

Javert’s mouth turns down at the corners. Even in his youth, the idea of a soulmate is unpleasant.

“Why did it come when I am so young?” he asks his mother, and she explains.

“I expect your soulmate is eighteen. Marks appear on the skin of both soulmates at the same time.”

“Oh.”

He puts little faith in this idea. The notion of being anchored to someone else, for them to be _essential_ to his being… the more Javert turns it over in his mind, the more he dislikes it.

When he becomes a prison guard, he is outfitted with a pair of sleek black gloves along with the rest of his uniform. Soon, he learns that this is common. Guards with visible marks are given attire with which to conceal him. For the most part, it is gloves like Javert’s, but on occasion, he sees a guard with a partial mask strapped over his cheek.

Javert always turns away. How pitiful, to have such a prominent mark. He is lucky his is only on his fingers.

The state does not take care of the convicts in nearly the same way. Black marks are visible through the rips in clothing, on bare skin, sometimes on faces. Javert realizes with distaste that many even intentionally display the marks.

The first time he is ordered to set a prisoner on release, he notices that the man’s mark is on his neck. Javert scowls and hands the yellow papers over roughly. In what righteous way could someone touch another thus so?

 

The mayor of Montreuil-sur-mer is meticulous when it comes to his collar, always keeping it buttoned to his chin. No one comments on it. It is not particularly out of place, after all; no one but his housemaid ever sees him outside of his duties as mayor, and it would be hardly professional for him to undo his collar while working.

Valjean relishes his ability to wear such clothing. It hides both his scars and his mark, enough that he nearly forgets. That is not to say that no one asks after his soulmate, however. He smiles thinly when they do.

“Dead,” he always lies in response. “We did not have time to know each other well before her passing.”

This is the same explanation he gives to Inspector Javert. The inspector frightens Valjean slightly—a tall man with a terrible smile, his nightstick always under one arm. He does not fail to notice that Javert wears a pair of gloves constantly.

“You have met your soulmate then, Inspector?” Valjean asks.

Javert crosses his arms over his chest. “I have not, monsieur le maire, nor do I intend to.”

The answer\ leaves Valjean unsettled, but he does not ask further.

As time goes on, he only grows more unsettled by Javert. The man is like a phantom, moving silently, rarely smiling. And never at Valjean—no, never at him. 

The day comes when Valjean finds a crowd circled around a cart, Père Fauchelevent beneath it. There is no time to wait for a jack. Valjean is forced to shed his coat and crawl under the cart. It takes all of his strength, but he lifts it.

As the townspeople accost him and Fauchelevent pours gratitiude on him, Valjean finds Javert’s eyes on him. The man is smiling, but wickedly.

Valjean recalls the guard that handed him his release papers, comparing his face against Javert’s, and his blood runs cold.

But the inspector stays out of his way for the most part. Valjean saves a woman, Fantine, from arrest and brings her to the hospital; he can practically taste Javert’s fury in the air. He ignores it as best as he can.

Javert approaches him a few weeks later and asks for dismissal, citing his “mistaken” suspicion of Valjean’s true identity as the cause. Valjean refuses, and Javert tells him of the Champmathieu trial.

It goes as disastrously right as things in Valjean’s life tend to. He admits his identity after a night of confliction that turns his hair white. He is comforted only by the fact that he is not sending an innocent man to the galleys. Incredibly, he is not arrested at Arras. Valjean tears back across the country to Montreuil-sur-mer, if only to say goodbye to Fantine. He will retrieve her child.

 

When Javert recieves the news that Monsieur Madeleine is in fact Jean Valjean, and the order to seize and arrest Valjean, he is both incensed and triumphant. In his rage, he forgets to buckle his collar properly, as well as to wear his gloves.

 

Fantine has just breathed her last and Valjean has just whispered a prayer over her body when he hears a barklike laugh from the doorway. He turns, slowly, to see Javert standing there with his hands in his pockets.

“Valjean,” Javert growls. Valjean cannot help but tremble.

“I know why you are here,” he says quietly.

Javert raises an eyebrow, lips twisting in what might be called a smile. “Then be quick about it.”

Valjean frowns, pauses. He gestures helplessly to the bed beside him. To Fantine.

“I have promised this woman that I shall take care of her child,” he protests. “Javert, I—please. Give me three days.”

There is the terrible laugh once again. “I’m not a fool! Three days to fetch a whore’s child? Ridiculous.”

“Her name is Fantine,” Valjean replies. He can feel anger creeping into his voice, but Javert remains indignant.

“I did not come here to argue with you, Valjean. We have already wasted enough time; come with me.”

“I will not hesitate to—”

“ _Come with me,_ ” Javert says furiously, and he is lunging across the room. He grabs for Valjean’s cravat, but in his anger misses; instead, his fingers slide beneath the fabric, halfway undone, and Valjean feels his neck burn with heat.

Javert rips his hand away. “No.” His face has turned from rage to horror in a mere second.

“No,” Valjean echoes. He is still shocked himself, and he brings a hand to his neck.

“You cannot—I do not—”

Javert is fumbling for words, trying to make sense of the situation out loud. Valjean ignores him and attempts to order his mind. He is so lost in thought that he only notices Javert has moved when he feels the heat of fingers against his wrists. Valjean pulls away, but Javert’s grip is firm.

His face is cold, disdainful, disgusted even.“I hate you,” he hisses. “Don’t think that this—that this changes anything. It’s idiotic. I will always hate you.”

“I understand,” Valjean says softly.

Javert snarls. In that moment, Valjean brings their wrists down from above their heads and slams them as hard as he can into the man’s head.

 

The years pass.

Valjean takes Cosette into his care. After the first pursuit, when he and Cosette end up at Petit Picpus, he thinks little of Javert anymore. He’s lucky in the fact that he can’t truly see his marks, that he needs a mirror to and that the nuns have none.

Occasionally, Cosette ask after the mark. He tells the usual lie. That his soulmate died before they had time to truly know each other.

It’s true, in a way. Javert is not dead, but he is still gone, and Valjean doubts they will ever know each other.

But he begins to forget. He starts to hope that maybe, he’s tipped the scale, and God will let him avoid his “soulmate” for the rest of their lives.

 

Javert, on the other hand, is continually plagued with thoughts of Valjean.

It’s not as though he has anything to fill his time besides police work, and that doesn’t fill every minute of every hour.

He removes the gloves now only to wash, sleeps with them on. He cannot bear to see his stained fingers. A convict for a soulmate—Javert can hardly entertain the thought, and it only enforces the idea that soulmates are worthless.

Sometimes, he wakes shaking. In his dreams, he takes the gloves off only to find that the black on the pads of his fingers is bleeding all over his skin, spreading over his hand and up his arm. It consumes him.

 

By the time they find themselves at the barricades, Valjean has nearly forgotten. He cannot see his mark, after all, and he has Cosette to distract him. Now that she is older, she still looks questioningly at his neck sometimes, but she knows not to ask.

Javert is acutely aware of their connection.

He is forced to shed the gloves for his disguise among the revolutionaries. When he is revealed, a gamin he vaguely recognizes catches sight of the marks and laughs.

“Gone without your gloves, inspector?” the boy teases. “I’d thought they were part of you! Why do you hide your marks so?”

Javert does not dignify the question with a response. Not much later, he will see the boy’s body as he is led to what he believes he shall be his death, and he will understand why he never saw a trace of black on the boy’s skin. He will feel a pang of something, but rarely having known pity, he will not recognize it.

 

When Valjean is brought into the tap-room and sees Javert, the memory of the man’s hand against his skin and that _burning_ rushes back to him, clear as day. He stills for a moment. Javert does not raise his head to look at him, but Valjean knows him. He would know him anywhere.

He asks for Javert’s life, for the right to end it, though he intends quite the opposite. Only then does the inspector look up.

“That's fair,” Javert murmurs. His voice is raspy and Valjean wonders just how long he has been here.

The leader of the rebels grants him the request. The boys—men, they must be men, no matter how young they seem to him—are drawn back to the fight. As they leave, Javert calls,

“It won’t be long!”

Valjean casts him a sharp look. The man stares back at him coolly.

 

Valjean is not rough as he leads Javert away from the tap-room, but he is not gentle either. Javert finds he is almost grateful for it; he would detest any illusion of kindness from the man surely about to kill him.

“I see that our… connection does not mean you have any qualms about killing me,” he manages as they come to a halt. Javert nudges his chin towards the pistol in Valjean’s hand. “Get on with it, then.”

Valjean is silent. From his jacket he removes a knife. Javert laughs, and the sound is grating even for his laugh, while the sensation is terrible. His throat hurts and his wrists and neck chafe, but this will soon be over.

“A knife suits you better,” he concedes.

It will hurt, he is sure, but it is only pain. Javert has dealt with it enough. It will be unbearably painful, but then it shall be over and he will be… beyond this. Whatever _beyond_ is.

Valjean reaches for his throat; Javert inhales for what he thinks must be the last time. But the knife slices through only rope, not skin, and then Valjean moves on to his bound wrists.

Javert frowns. “Are you mad?”

“I wonder sometimes,” Valjean mutters. He straightens. “You are free to go.”

Javert stares at him for a long moment, open-mouthed. But Valjean simply looks back at him, face weary.

“Is this because…?” He gestures to the man’s neck, then to his own hand. He does not need to finish the sentence. Valjean shrugs.

“I would have done it anyway,” he replies.

_He does not deny it—_

Valjean has continued speaking. “If I make it out of here alive, I am lodging at No. 7, Rue de l’Homme Armé, under the name Fauchelevent.”

“No. 7, Rue e l’Homme Armé,” Javert whispers.

“Yes.”

“Fauchelevent.”

Valjean nods. “Ultime Fauchelevent. Now go.”

He still hesitates, then runs as best as he is capable. Javert expects a bullet in his back at any moment; Valjean was renowned for his marksmanship when he was Madeleine. But the bullet does not come, and Javert escapes death.

 

Valjean returns to the barricade, though not before shooting into the air. He has in no way accomplished the duty he set out to do.

He continues to wait. As he does, he wonders about the question Javert offered him.

He would have spared the man’s life even if their marks did not fit each other, that much he knows.

But Valjean still wonders, about their marks, about how they have circled each other all their life. As the night wears on, his mark begins to sting ever so slightly.

 

Javert ignores the stinging. He cannot say when it begins, but it grows, and he is thankful that it is only on his fingers.

When the man who stumbles out of the sewer with a corpse on his back reveals himself to be Valjean, the stinging grows considerably. All throughout the carriage ride it increases, and Javert shifts uncomfortably in his seat. He is unwilling to reveal any weakness to Valjean, so he stays silent.

As he walks away from Valjean’s home, towards the Prefecture and then to the Pont au Change, the stinging grows nearly unbearable. It is all Javert can do to keep from screaming.

 

It is all Valjean can do to keep from weeping.

The marks on his neck are stinging so badly he is shaking. They are bared to the world for the first time in nearly twenty years; he didn’t have time to put on his coat, and barely time to button his collar. The night air does nothing for the pain. Valjean knows, deep within himself, that it is because the stinging goes beyond any physical malady.

He tears through the streets all the while. When he comes upon the Pont au Change, there is a man in a greatcoat climbing onto the parapet.

Valjean knows exactly who it is.

“Javert!” he shouts, and with the way it tears from his throat, it is almost a scream. “Javert, get down from there!”

“No,” Javert replies. He is trembling.

“Please,” Valjean says, begs. “Please come down, Javert, I will not force you to but I cannot let you end your own life. I will follow you if you jump— _God_ , my neck stings as though it has been pricked with nettles and I think it has something to do with how you are—”

“You feel it too?” Javert murmurs.

Tears are pricking at the corners of his eyes. “Yes I do, yes, and it is nearly unbearable. I do not understand how you can be so calm; come down, so this shall stop and we can talk, Javert. That is all I ask. That we talk.”

“Fine.”

He does not wait for Javert to step down on his own. Instead, Valjean wraps his arms around the man’s waist and brings him to the ground himself. There Javert sinks to his knees, and Valjean kneels beside him.

Javert is shaking still. Now, Valjean can see that his eyes are wide with something like fear.

“I can’t let you go,” he whispers raggedly. “My duty to the law forbids it. Nor can—nor can I imprison you once more. My duty to justice, _true_ justice, forbids it. I cannot solve it.”

“You cannot solve this by jumping into the Seine,” Valjean says gently. Already the stinging has gone down considerably.

Javert reaches out with his stained hand. Slowly, he fits his fingers over Valjean’s neck, matching the marks against each other.

This time when they touch, a gentle cold pulses in Valjean’s neck. He imagines it must much be the same for Javert.

They remain like that for a long time, kneeling, with Javert’s hand on Valjean.

Eventually, he removes the man’s hand from himself. But Valjean does not release him, rather, he turns Javert’s hand over in his so he can see the black marks. He dips his head and presses a kiss to the inside of each marked finger.

When he has finished, he looks up. Javert is staring at him with a mix of apprehension and shock and something else, something Valjean has never seen directed towards him.

“Come home with me,” Valjean says quietly, “and we can talk this out.”

Javert swallows. Slowly, he nods, and they rise together. 


End file.
